





r\ -^m.- J'\ 



J^^r 






«>^^^e> -.1^; .^v .^^ o>^yv' <}.^'^'\ ^^^*" '^^^'"'^^^ ' 






* , 






c*^^; 













.V 







V^V ^°.-^/ V-^\/ "°-».' 












V-S' 



■*^^^. 










.^ oV^^^112\'- ^^<^' fSM^^\ '^^c$' -1^^^*. ^oV^ 



'bV" 








^^-^^^ 

















■.^0' 










•iq. 




♦- o. 



^0-^.i> 



' « «5 °*^ 




^^-n^. 



a2> f 



YJ2? 



AMERICAN 

UNION AGAINST 

MILITARISM 



OFFICERS 



Lillian D. Wald, Chairman 

Amos Pinchot, Vice-Chairman 

L. HoLUNGSwoRTH WooD, Treasurer 

Crystal Eastman, Executive Secretary 

Charles T. Hallinan, Editorial Director 

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 

Jane Ad dams 

Emilt G. Balch 

A. A. Berle 

Herbert S. Bigelow 

SopHONisBA P. Breckinridge 

Wiluam F. Cochran 

Max Eastman 

John Lovejov Elliott 

Mrs. Glendower Evans 

Zona Gale 

John Haynes Holmes 

David Starr Jordan 

Paul U. Kellogg 

Agnes Leach 

AucE Lewisohn 

Owen R. Lovejoy 

Frederick Lynch 

John A. McSparran 

James H. jMaurer 

Henry R. Mussey 

Norman Thomas 

Oswald Garrison Villard 

James P. Warbasse 

Stephen S. Wise 

Headquarters 

MUNSEY BLDG., WASHINGTON, D. C. 

Telephone IVlain 4859 

Send us your name and a contribution 
AprU, 1917 



"It i:( time for Congr«s» tu cKamine and decide for itself It ha» taken tbiogt un trur 
long enough " — Daniel Wfbster 



Daniel Webster 
on 
The Draft 

Text of a Speech delivered in Conj^ress 
December 9, 1814 

Reprinted from '*Tlie Letters of Daniel Webster," 
edited bv C. II. Van Tvne 



Contrary to the impression given by the majority report 
from the Senate Committee on ^[ililary Affairs, the United 
States did not enact "drastic draft laws" during the War 
of 1812. 

The State of New York did enact such a measure but her 
move was generally regarded as an attempt to stampede 
Congress into the passage of a conscription act. 

In spite of the fact that the bill was strongly urged by 
the President and the Secretary of War, it was defeated oo 
the ground that it was unconstitutional. This argument of 
Webster's, coming from the ablest constitutional lawyer in 
Congress, contributed materially to its defeat. 



AMERICAN UNION AGAINST MILITARISM 

Munsey Building Washington, D. C. 



"Where w it written in the Constitution . . that you may take children Iron, 
parents . and compel them to fight the battles of any war which the folly or the wi 

nes.s of government may I'ugage \i\'''" -Diiniel Webalei 



T 



speech of Daniel Webster 

[The House had under consideration a bill proposing to draft men for service 
in the War of 1812.] 

Mr. Webster. Mr. Chairman: After the best reflection 
which I have been able to bestow on the subject of the bill before 
you, I am of the opinion that its principles are not warranted by 
any provision of the constitution. It appears to me to partake 
of the nature of those other propositions for military measures, 
which this session, so fertile in invention, has produced. It is 
of the same class with the plan of the Secretary of War; with 
the bill reported to this House by its own committee, for filling 
the ranks of the Regular Army by classifying the male population 
of the United States; with the resolution recently introduced by 
an honorable gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Ingersoll, and 
which now lies on your table, carrying the principle of compulsory 
service in the Regular Army to its utmost extent. 

I 

This bill, indeed, is less undisguised in its object, and less direct 
II its means, than some of the measures proposed. It is an attempt 
o exercise the power of forcing the free men of this country into 
he ranks of the Army, for the general purposes of the war, under 
olor of a military service. To this end it commences with a 
^classification, which is no way connected with the general organiza- 
ion of the Militia, nor, to my apprehension, included within any 
>f the powers which Congress possesses over them. All the 
uithority which this government has over the Militia, until 
ictually called into the service, is to enact laws for their organiza- 
ion and discipline. This power it has exercised. It now possesses 
he further power of calling into its service any portion of the 
Vlilitia of the States, in the particular exigencies for which the 
constitution provides, and of governing them during the con- 
' linuance of such service. Here its authority ceases. The 
"llassification of the whole body of the Militia, according to the 
l>rovisions of this bill, is not a measure which respects either their 
L'eneral organization or their disciphne. It is a distinct system 
latroduced for new purposes, and not connected with any power 
'hich the Constitution has conferred on Congress. 

But, Sir, there is another consideration. The services of the 
men to be raised under this act are not limited to those 



cases in which alone this government is entitled to the 
aid of the militia^ of the States. These cases are par- 
ticularly stated in the Constitution — "to repel invasion, 
suppress insurrection, or execute the laws." But this biU 
has no limitation in this respect. The usual mode of legislating 
on the subject is abandoned. The only section which would 
have confined the services of the IVIilitia proposed to be raised, 
within the United States, has been stricken out and if the President 
should not march them into the Provinces of England at the 
North, or of Spain at the South, it will not be because he is pro- 
hibited by any provision in this Act. 

This, then, Sir, is a bill for calling out the Militia not according 
to its existing organization, but by draft from new created classes 
— not merely for the purpose of repelling invasion, suppressing 
insurrection, or executing the laws, but for the general objects of 
war — for defending ourselves, or invading others as may be 
thought expedient, not for a sudden emergency, or for a short 
time, but for long stated periods; for two years, if the proposition 
of the Senate should finally prevail; for one year if the amendment 
of the House should be adopted. What is this Sir, but raising a 
standing army out of the Militia by draft, and to be recruited by 
draft, in like manner, as often as occasions require ? 

This bill, then, is not difiFerent in principle from the other bills, 
plans, and resolutions which I have mentioned. The present 
discussion is properly and necessarily common to them all. It is 
a discussion. Sir, of the last importance. Tliat measures of this 
nature should be debated at all, in the councils of a free 
government, is a cause of dismay. Tlie question is nothing 
less than whether the most essential rights of personal 
liberty shall be surrendered, and despotism embraced in 
its worst form. 

n 

I have risen, on this occasion, with anxious and painful emo- 
tions, to add my admonitions to what has been said by others. 
Admonition and remonstrance, I am aware, are not accei)table 
strains. They are duties of unpleasant performance. But they 
are, in my judgment, the duties which the condition of a falling 
state imposes. They arc duties which sink deep in his conscience, 
who believes it probable that they may be the last services which 



> "Militia" as used in the Constitution refers to the entire male population 
of the several States, capable of bearing arms — the age limits varying in 
different States. The National Guard, strictly speaking, is not the militia, 
but simply the organized militia. 



he may be able to render to the government of his country. On 
the issue of this discussion, I beheve the fate of this government 
may rest. Its duration is incompatible, in my opinion, with the 
existence of the measures in contemplation. A crisis has at last 
arrived, to which the course of things has long tended, and which 
may be decisive upon the happiness of present and future genera- 
tions. If there be anji;hing important in the concerns of men, the 
considerations which fill the present hour are important. I am 
anxious above all things, to stand acquitted before God, and my 
conscience, and in the public judgments, of all participation in 
the Counsels, which have brought us to our present condition and 
which now threaten the dissolution of the government. When the 
present generation of men shall be swept away and that this 
government ever existed shall be a matter of history only, I desire 
that it may then be known that you have not proceeded in your 
course unadmonished and unforewarned. Let it then be known 
that there were those, who would have stopped you, in the career 
of your measures, and held you back, as by the skirts of your 
garments, from the precipice, over which you are plunging, and 
drawing after the government of your Country. . . . 

It is time for Congress to examine and decide for itself. 
It has taken things on trust long enough. It has followed 
executive recommendation till there remains no hope of finding 
safety in that path. WTiat is there, Sir, that makes it the duty 
of this people now to grant new confidence to the administration, 
and to surrender their most important rights to its discretion? 
On what merits of its own does it rest this extraordinary claim ? . . . 

Let us examine the nature and extent of the power which is 
assumed by the various military measures before us. In the 
present want of men and money, the Secretary of War has pro- 
posed to Congress a Military Conscription. For the conquest of 
Canada the people will not enlist, and if they would the treasury 
is exhausted and they could not be paid. Conscription is chosen 
as the most promising instrument, both of overcoming the reluct- 
ance to the Service, and of subduing the difficulties which arise 
from the deficiencies of the exchequer. The administration asserts 
the right to fill the ranks of the Regular Army by compulsion. It 
contends that it may now take one out of every twenty-five men, 
and any part or whole of the rest, whenever its occasions require. 
Persons thus taken by force and put into an army may be compelled 
to serve there, during the war, or for life. They may be put on 
any service, at home or abroad, for defense or for invasion, accord- 
ing to the will and pleasure of the government. This power 



does not grow out of any invasion of the country, or even out of 
a state of war. It Vjelongs to government at all times, in peace 
as well as war, and is to be exercised under all circumstances 
according to its mere discretion. This, Sir, is the amount of 
principle contended for by the Secretary of War. 

Is this, Sir, consistent with the character of a free government ? 
Is this civil liberty ? Is this the real character of our constitution ? 
No, Sir, indeed it is not. The Constitution is libelled, foully 
libelled. The people of this country have not established for 
themselves such a fabric of despotism. They have not pur- 
chased at a vast expense of their own treasures and their own 
7 blood a Magna Charta to be slaves, ^^^lere is it written in the 
^ Constitution, in what article or section is it contained that you 
/ may take children from their parents and parents from their 
t children and compel them to fight the battles of any war which 
the folly or the wickedness of government may engage in .' Under 
what concealment has this power lain hidden which now for the 
first time comes forth, with a tremendous and baleful aspect, 
to trample down and destroy the dearest rights of personal liberty ? 
WTio will show me any constitutional injunction which makes it 
the duty of the American people to surrender everything valuable 
in life, and even life itself, not when the safety of their country and 
its liberties may demand the sacrifice, but whenever the purposes 
of an ambitious and mischievous government may require it ? 
Sir, I almost disdain to go to quotations and references to prove 
that such an adominable doctrine has no foundation in the 
Constitution of the country. It is enough to know that that 
instrument was intended as the basis of a free government and 
that the power contended for is incompatible with any notion of 
personal liberty. An attempt to maintain this doctrine upon the 
provisions of the Constitution is an exercise of perverse ingenuity 
to extract slavery from the substance of a free government. 
It is an attempt to show, by proof and argument, that we ourselves 
are subjects of despotism and that we have a right to chains and 
bondage, firmly secured to us and our children by the provisio'.is 
of our government. It has been the labor of other men at other 
times, to mitigate and reform the powers of government by con- 
struction; to support the rights of personal security by every 
species of favorable and benign interpretation, and thus to infuse 
a free spirit into governments not friendly in their general struc- 
ture and formation to public liberty. 

The supporters of the measures before us act on the opposite 
principle. It is their task to raise arbitrary powers, by construe- 



tion, out of a plaiji written charter of National Liberty. It iH 
their pleasing duty to free us of the delusion, which mc 
have fondly cherished, that >\e are the subjects of a mild, 
free, and limited government, and to demonstrate by a 
regular chain of premises and conclusions, that govern- 
ment possesses over us a power more tyrannical, more 
arbitrary, more dangerous, more allied to blood and murder, 
more full of every form of mischief, more productive of 
every sort of misery, than has been exercised by any civilized 
government, with one exception, in modern times. 

Ill 

The Secretary of War has favored us with an argument on the 
constitutionaUty of this power. Those who lament that such 
doctrines should be supported by the opinion of a high oflBcer of 
government, may a little abate their regret, when they remember 
that the same officer, in his last letter of instructions to our 
ministers abroad, maintained the contrary. In that letter he 
declares that even the impressment of seamen, for which 
many more plausible reasons may be given than for the 
impressment of soldiers, is repugnant to our constitution. 

It might, therefore, be sufficient answer to his argument, in 
the present case, to quote against it the sentiments of its own 
author, and to place the two opinions before the House, in a state 
of irreconcilable conflict. Further comment on either might 
then be properly forborne, until he should be pleased to inform 
us which he retracted and to which he adhered. But the im- 
portance of the subject may justify a further consideration of the 
argument. 

Congress having, by the Constitution, a power to raise armies, 
the Secretary contends that no restraint is to be imposed on the 
exercise of this power, except such as is expressly stated in the 
written letter of the instrument. In other words, that Congress 
may execute its powers by any means it chooses, unless such means 
are particularly prohibited. But the general nature and object 
of the Constitution impose as rigid restriction on the means of 
exercising power as could be done by the most explicit injunctions. 
It is the first principle applicable to such a case that no construc- 
tion shall be admitted which impairs the general nature and char- 
acter of the instrument. A free Constitution of government 
is to be construed upon free principles, and every branch of its 
provisions is to receive such an interpretation as is full of its 
general spirit. No means are to be taken by imphcation, which 



would strike us absurdly if expressed. And what would have 
been more absurd, than for this constitution to have said, 
that to secure the great blessings of liberty it gave to govern- 
ment an uncontrolled power of military conscription? 

Yet such is the absurdity which it is made to exhibit under the 
commentary of the Secretary of War. 

IV 

But it is said that it might happen that an army would not be 
raised by voluntary enlistment, in which case the power to raise 
an army would be granted in vain, unless they might be raised by 
compulsion. If this reasoning could prove anything it would 
equally show that whenever the legitimate powers of the Consti- 
tution should be so badly administered as to cease to answer the 
great ends intended by them, such new powers may be assumed 
or usurped, as any existing administration may deem expedient. 
This is a result of his own reasoning to which the Secretary does 
not profess to go. But it is a true result. For if it is to be assumed 
that all powers were granted, which might by possibility become 
necessary, and that government itself is the judge of this possible 
necessity, then the powers of the government are precisely what 
it chooses they should be. Apply the same reasoning to any other 
power granted to Congress and test its accuracy by its result. 
Congress has power to borrow money. How is it to exercise this 
power? Is it confined to voluntary loans? There is no express 
Umitation to that effect, and in the language of the Secretary it 
might happen, indeed, it has happened, that persons could not 
be found Avilling to lend. Money might be borrowed then in 
any other mode. In other words, Congress might resort to a 
forced loan. It might take the money of any man by force and 
give in exchange Exchequer notes or Certificates of Stock. Would 
this be quite constitutional, Sir? It is entirely within the reason- 
ing of the Secretary, and it is the result of his argument, outraging 
the rights of individuals in a far less degree than the practical 
consequences which he himself draws from it. A compulsory 
loan is not to be compared, in point of enormity, with a 
compulsory military service. 

If the Secretary of War has proved the right of Congress to 
enact a law enforcing a draft of men out of the Mihtia into the 
Regular Army, he will at any time be able to prove quite as 
clearly that Congress has power to create a Dictator. The argu- 
ments which have helped him in one case will equally help him 
in the other. The same reason of a supposed or possible state 



necessity which is urged now, may be repeated then with equal 
pertinency and effect. 

Sir, in granting Congress the power to raise armies, the People 
have granted all the means which are ordinary and usual, and which 
are consistent with the liberties and security of the People them- 
selves and they have granted no others. To talk about the 
unhmited power of the government over the means to execute 
its authority is to hold a language which is true only in regard to 
despotisms. The tjTanny of Arbitrary Government consists as 
much in its means as in its ends, and it would be a ridiculous and 
absurd constitution which should be less cautious to grant against 
abuses in the one case than in the other. All the means and 
instruments which a free government exercises, as well as the 
ends and objects it pursues, are to partake of its own essential 
character, and to be conformed to its genuine spirit. A free 
government \*ith arbitrary means to administer it is a 
contradiction, a free government without adequate pro- 
visions for personal security is an absurdity, a free govern- 
ment with an uncontrolled power of military conscription 
is a solecism, at once the most ridiculous and abominable 
that ever entered into the head of man. 



Sir, I invite the supporters of the measures before you to look 
to their actual operations. Let the men who have so often 
pledged their own fortunes and their own lives to the support of 
this war, look to the wanton sacrifice which they are about to 
make of their lives and fortunes. They may talk as they will 
about substitutes and compensation, and exemptions. It must 
come to the draft at last. If the Government cannot hire men to 
voluntarily fight its battles neither can individuals. If the war 
should continue, there will be no escape, and every man's fate 
and every man's life will come to depend on the issue of the 
military draft. Who shall describe to you the horror which 
your orders of Conscription shall create in the once happy villages 
of this country? Who shall describe the anguish and distress 
which they will spread over those hills and valleys, where men 
have, heretofore, been accustomed to labor and to rest in security 
and happiness. Anticipate the scene, Sir, when the class 
shall assemble to stand its draft and to throw the dice for 
blood. What a group of wives and mothers and sisters, of 
helpless age and helpless infancy, shall gather round the theatre 
of this horrible lottery, as if the strokes of death were to fall from 



heaven before their eyes, on a father, a brother, a son, or a husband. 
And in the majority of cases. Sir, it will be the stroke of death. 
Under present prospects of a continuance of the war, not one half 
of them on whom your conscription shall fall, will ever return to 
tell the tale of their sufferings. They will perish of disease and 
pestilence, or they will leave their bones to whiten in fields beyond 
the frontier. Does the lot fall on the father of a family? His 
children, already orphans, shall see his face no more. When they 
behold him for the last time they shall see him lashed and fettered, 
and dragged away from his own threshold, like a felon and an 
outlaw. Does it fall on a son, the hope and staff of aged parents ? 
That hope shall fail them. On that staff they shall lean no longer. 
They shall not enjoy the happiness of dying before their children. 
They shall totter to their graves, bereft of their offspring, and 
unwept by any who inherit their blood. Does it fall on a husband ? 
The eyes which watch his parting steps may swim in tears forever. 
She is a wife no longer. There is no relation so tender or so sacred, 
that, by these accursed measures, you do not propose to violate 
it. Into the paradise of domestic life you enter, not indeed by 
temptations and sorceries, but by open force and violence. * * * 
Nor is it, Sir, for the defense of his own house and home 
that he who is subject lo military draft is to perform the 
task allotted to him. * * * 

VI 

I would ask. Sir, whether the supporters of these measures have 
well weighed the difficulties of their undertaking. Have they 
considered whether it will be found easy to execute laws which 
bear such marks of despotism on their front, and which will be 
so productive of every sort and degree of misery in their execution. 
For one. Sir, I hesitate not to say that they cannot be executed. 
No law professedly passed for the purpose of compelling a service 
in the Regular Army, not any law% which under color of mihtary 
draft shall compel men to serve in the Army, not for the emergen- 
cies mentioned in the constitution, but for long periods and for the 
general objects of war, can be carried into effect. The operation 
of measures thus unconstitutional and illegal ought to be prevented 
by a resort to other measures which are both constitutional and 
legal. It will be the solemn duty of the State Governments 
to protect their own authority over their own Militia, 
and to interpose between their citizens and arbitrary 
power. These are among the objects for which the 
State Governments exist, and their highest obligations 



bind them to the preservation of their own rights 
and the Uberties of their people. I express the senti- 
ments here, Sir, because I shall express them to my con- 
stituent. Both they and myself live under a constitution 
which teaches us that "the doctrine of non-resistance against 
arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish, and destructive 
of the good and happiness of mankind."^ With the same earnest- 
ness with which I now exhort you to forbear from these measures, 
I shall exhort them to exercise their unquestionable right of pro- 
viding for the security of their liberties. 

In my opinion, Sir, the sentiments of the free population of this 
country are greatly mistaken here. The nation is not yet in a 
temper to submit to conscription. The people have too fresh 
and strong a feeling of the blessings of civil liberty to be willing 
thus to surrender it. You may talk to them as nuich as you 
please of the victory and glory to be ol)tained in the enemy's 
provinces, they will hold those objects in light estimation, if the 
means be a forced military service. You may sing to them the 
song of Canada con(juests in all its variety, but they will not be 
charmed out of the remembrance of their substantial interests 
and true happiness. Similar pretenses, they know, are the 
graves in which the liberties of other nations have been buried 
and they will take warning. 

Laws, Sir, of this nature can create nothing but opposition. If 
you scatter them abroad like the fabled serpents teeth, they will 
spring up into armed men. A mihtary force cannot be raised, 
in this manner, but by the means of a military force. If the 
administration has found that it cannot form an armv 
without conscription, it will find, if it venture on these 
experiments, that it cannot enforce conscription without 
an army. The Government was not constituted for such 
purposes. Framed in the spirit of liberty and in the love of peace, 
it has no powers which render it able to enforce such laws. The 
attempt, if we rashly make it, will fail and having already thrown 
away our peace, we may thereby throw away our government. 



* New Hampshire Bill of Rights. 



S9 



f 



